I was a campaign volunteer during the 2018 congressional election, phoning and canvassing on behalf of a New Jersey Democratic candidate in hopes of flipping a House seat and ultimately the entire House. My guy won, and of course the larger goal was also accomplished.
I had the honor of attending the new representative’s swearing-in reception in January of last year, and then wormed my way into the group of paid campaign workers who went out for dinner afterwards. During the walk to the restaurant I chatted with one staffer, and the subject of impeachment came up. (This was almost a year before the House actually impeached the president.) My companion said, “I would hate to see Donald Trump impeached before he has finished the important work he’s doing, and is so uniquely qualified to do, of destroying the Republican Party.”
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that Donald Trump is on his way to fulfilling that staffer’s vision. He has truly started to self-destruct (some might understandably take issue with my inclusion of the phrase “started to” in that sentence) and appears to be on his way to enlarging the Democratic majority in the House and perhaps even costing the Republicans their majority in the Senate.
A public health emergency that requires the president to unite the country in a coherent, effective response. An impassioned social justice movement that requires the president to display empathy and leadership in response to demands for an end to long-standing racial injustices. What these crises require of the president is completely contrary to his political instincts. The strategies he has employed for decades — lying, attacking his opponents, inventing grievances, and sowing division — are counterproductive not only for the country but for his own candidacy and the Republican Party.
And it appears that Trump is not only disinclined to provide what the country needs from him in the present moment, his psychological pathologies may make him entirely unable to do so. In fact, he seems incapable of even pretending to do so. One would think that even the most cynical and self-serving president would be able to heed the warnings of his advisers and say what he needed to say to mollify the independent and moderate Republican voters on whom a second election victory depends. Trump just can’t do it.
For those who pray for an ascendant Democratic Party, the good news is that Trump may deliver for them. The very bad news is that tens of thousands of Americans will die in the process.